


Just Good Friends

by Unfeathered



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Just Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-29
Updated: 2007-10-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22147318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unfeathered/pseuds/Unfeathered
Summary: He'd forgotten that Rose was from a different century, a different culture, with different expectations...
Relationships: Jack Harkness & Rose Tyler
Kudos: 21





	Just Good Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://unfeathered.livejournal.com/40024.html) on 29 October 2007. Beta'd by [mad_jaks](https://mad_jaks.livejournal.com/).

Jack and Rose danced for hours on the return journey from Raxicoricofallapatorius, happy and laughing and boogying away their high spirits. They ended with one slow dance, to wind down a bit. There couldn't be any harm in _one_ slow dance, Jack thought.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

Because at the end of the dance, he was brought up short by Rose going up on her tiptoes, placing soft hands on his cheeks, and raising her face expectantly, eyes fluttering shut, for his kiss.

He hadn't foreseen that at all. He'd forgotten, in the euphoria of finding himself with a home and family again, that Rose was from a different century, a different culture, with different expectations. He hadn't anticipated her thinking his naturally easy and flirtatious manner was an invitation to anything more.

Even the Doctor hadn't made that mistake: he had just marched in and taken what he wanted, without waiting for Jack to try to seduce him. Jack's heart beat faster at the memory of the Doctor holding him this way to kiss him, hands hard and rough and firm, eyes open and demanding. The Doctor understood him. Rose – he realised belatedly – didn't.

He had to act. Better to break her heart now than later.

As the music faded into silence, Jack closed his hands lightly round her wrists and pulled her hands away from his face, gently but firmly. "No," he said softly, thumbs rubbing soothingly over the pulse-points on her wrists.

Her eyes opened again slowly and peered up at him, confusion and embarrassment sparking and flaring. "Why not? I thought – "

Oh, God. She was so very, very young.

Jack smiled at her, a low-powered version of the megawatt smile he'd used to seduce her in the first place, out there in front of Big Ben. He needed to distract her and he knew his smile was pretty much guaranteed to do that. "You're so quick on the uptake, I keep forgetting you don't know as much about my century as I know about yours. I should have made some things clear a bit earlier." His smile turned rueful. "This – the dancing, the joking, the way I am with you – it doesn't mean what it would mean from a Twenty-First Century guy."

Rose took a deep breath and made what was obviously a valiant effort to meet him on an adult level. "So you're saying that…" She shook her head and looked up at him uncertainly. "What _are_ you saying?"

There was actually a trace of a smile in her eyes, and Jack smiled back, feeling a surge of affection for this extraordinary girl-woman who'd been swept off her feet and out of her century by the Doctor and who was trying so hard to learn, to understand, to fit in…

"Just that where I come from – _when_ I come from – attitudes are different. People flirt all the time – it's like saying 'hello'." He chuckled. "You must have noticed how I say hello!"

"Well…" she said, a grin forming on her face, her eyes dancing.

Distraction accomplished.

"Exactly." Jack let his hands slide down hers to her fingers, putting a little more space between them. "That's not me coming on to someone – well, maybe it is just a little bit, sometimes… But anyway, the point is, where I come from people are a lot more relaxed about flirting and kissing and sex – and who we do it with… "

"Yeah, the Doctor said that." Rose frowned slightly as she tried to remember. "He said Fifty-First Century people were more – um – flexible…"

"Yeah," Jack nodded, relieved that she was getting it. "And because we do it more, it doesn't mean as much as it does in your time. I mean, it _can_ , but it doesn't have to. So all of this dancing and talking and _closeness_ we've got going on here – that's just me saying I like you. Not me saying I'm intending to go any further, because I know that's a big deal for you and…"

He'd lost her.

"It's not _that_ big a deal!" Rose wrenched her hands out of his and glared up at him. "What – you think I'm a _child_ or something? Like I haven't had sex before!"

"No! That's not what I meant." Damn it. "I like you a lot, Rose, and I don't – "

"Just… like?" she said, with disappointment bitter in her voice.

"A lot!" he said quickly, feeling like a monster. "A real lot. But you and the Doctor – you're like my family now, and the TARDIS is my home! And I… I don't want to hurt you."

"Yeah, well, maybe you should have thought of that before you went and charmed me into falling in love with you!" she flung at him, harshly, turning away and putting a hand on the TARDIS console to steady herself.

Jack stared at her back for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and went to stand close behind her; his hand hovered above hers for a moment, then he changed his mind and placed it beside hers instead. "I'm sorry," he said, as calmly as he could. He shrugged, and knew she felt it, even though he wasn't quite touching her. "I don't normally hang around long enough for it to be a problem."

She sniffed. "Sounds like someone else I know."

He chuckled. "Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Two of a kind, we are. You can do a lot better than either one of us, Rose."

"Don't you go telling me who I should fall in love with!" she said grumpily, but the bitter hurt had gone. "It's not like I can help it."

Jack snorted gently, smiling. "Maybe not, but you can chose who to stick with. And you should stick with Mickey."

"Mickey's boring."

Jack chuckled warmly. "Maybe." Definitely, compared to himself and the Doctor, but he wasn't going to let Rose know he agreed on that count. "But he's waiting for you, Rose. He's loyal and dependable and all sorts of other things that I'm not, and neither is the Doctor. And he's a lot nearer your age."

He saw her shoulders shake just a little, and reached out his free hand to stroke her arm.

"It's all right," she said, a little quavery, a little hiccupy. "I'm not crying. I'm laughing. It just – you can't _get_ much further from my age than 900 years old!"

Another wave of affection engulfed him, unexpectedly. "Come here," he said, turning her towards him, and pulling her close so she wouldn't have to let him see her face. And then she _did_ start to cry, and he held her tight and cradled her and comforted her and murmured platitudes to her, until the sobs began to lessen and she was still and quiet against his chest. He dug out a hanky and she took it gratefully and used it to wipe her eyes and blow her nose and get back some composure.

At length, she pulled away from him a bit, stuffing the hanky in her pocket, and raised a red, slightly puffy face to him. "I've made a bit of a fool of myself, haven't I?"

Jack shook his head, smiling fondly. "No you haven't – _I'm_ the fool. You're right. I should have thought. It's just – it's been so long since I've been able to just relax and be me, without playing a part. And I think it went to my head a little." He looked her over and decided it was safe to cut to the punchline. He grinned. "So… Just good friends, then?"

She hesitated, then shook her head, but she was smiling too. "No. _Best_ friends."

Jack laughed. "All right then! Best friends it is!"

Rose stuck out a hand. "Shake on it?"

He took her hand and shook it, but couldn't resist adding, "Of course, in my time, we have a different way of cementing a deal."

Rose looked up at him archly. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." He held her face gently between his hands in a direct reversal of how they'd started all this, and leaned forward, trying to signal what he was going to do and give her time to back out if she couldn't cope with it.

She didn't back out, so he kissed her, firmly and, for him, chastely. Then he drew back and smiled at her and she smiled back, her eyes shining again.

Jack winked. "C'mon. I think we've left the Doctor by himself far too long." He took her hand. "Let's go and see what he's up to!"


End file.
